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Archive for February, 2006

Been a bit lax following the week of creativity (yeah, not bad thanks for asking – not nearly as much as I’d hoped, but made some headway on a couple of things and only watched Countdown once), so I apologise to any devoted readers feeling shortchanged by the lack of material. But fear not – I have a treat (of sorts) for you!

It’s probably escaped you’re notice, but when gibbering on here I generally try not to mention my location. By doing this I was trying to put myself forward as an everyman, anywhere (but in a bit of a strop) figure. Presumably most of you reading this already know me, but there was always the vague hope in the back of my mind that this would reach people beyond my circle of friends, family and acquaintences. Thus I’ve kept site specific comments to the barest of minimums (except in the proper memoir sections – A History of Collecting returns soon!). And now I go and spoil it all by writing this. It might interest some of you and is hopefully the first of many reviews for the fine folk running that particular site. There, almost two posts in one go. Am I good to you or what?

The title of this piece is stolen from Dom Joly’s autobiography, which I can only apologise for. Not to Dom, obviously, but to myself for stooping so low as to plagiarise from the occasionally amusing tubby poltroon. Hey, I quite liked his talk show. Trigger Happy was wank though, wasn’t it.

Regular readers will have probably heard me whining on about the fact that no one ever uses that Contact button up there. Especially people I don’t know. So it came as a bit of a surprise to see that a message from a Richard Houston (address unknown) had written me the following missive;

“How annoying.

“I was feeling very pleased with myself at having dreamt up the oh-so-clever play on words .. “something for the weakened”. A quick go on Google to see whether or not it was an original and … no.

<> “Bastard. And *years* ago too!”

So, I’d like to take a second to publicly apologise to Mr Houston for my own spectacular genius, while trying not to rub his nose in it at the same time. I’d like to think that I came up with the phrase myself, and recall googling it before this site went up, only to find no results for it as a phrase. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s just a gag I nicked from someone else that I just don’t remember. I imagine half of these entries probably are anyway. Anyway, welcome Mr Houston, to this particular Brotherhood of Puns, joining Dan Haythorn, Londoner who recorded an album called Something for the Weakened (which I have heard and isn’t that unpleasant) and some American band whose name escapes me who recorded a song with that self same title.

Ladies and gentlemen, you join me during the second day of yet another attempt at a creative binge. It’s all going considerably better than previous attempts, which I’m sure I’ve whinged on about here before. I have managed to start two projects and haven’t watched a single episode of Countdown. This is good. The fact that I haven’t got very far with either and have spent far too much time playing against my current nemesis, Spider Solitaire, is less good. Though I have won two games on the hard setting, which is quite good but essentially worthless. As ever, I can see my own lack of self discipline or motivation might be my downfall, but again I shall press on and, even if I don’t finish anything, I should have something accomplished by Friday. The other problem I’m encountering is in trying to resurrect a concept I came up with almost a decade ago. The story’s been sitting in the back of my head for all that time, but as I try to commit it to paper I’m beginning to wonder if it really is as good tale as I originally thought. Also it involves a level of craft that I’m not entirely convinced I possess. Nevertheless, I plan to continue trying and that’s where you can help, dear reader. Should you spot me at any time over the next week, doing something pointless or generally uncreative during daylight hours, then feel free to pillory me in any way you feel fit. Just not too hard now.

Just searching through the reminders bit of my phone, which I don’t use that often but had recently stored a friend’s e-mail address in. Along with the address were a couple of other things I had noted down, one which I recall as being a great idea, the other which mystifies me rather. The brilliant idea had been typed in as ‘Trainers what look like shoes!’ This idea struck me when I was musing over the conundrum of getting into a club with a no trainers policy (I hasten to add that club’s with no trainers policies are seldom worth getting into, whatever your footwear, and that I was not attempting entry of one when the idea struck). I kind of stick by this as a concept and demand all credit should Nike suddenly set one of their sweatshops* running on the task. I have no idea how one would go about making something that looked like a patent leather brogue, yet was still through some miracle of design a trainer, but I’m an ideas man. I leave that sort of thing to the designers. It’s what they get paid for isn’t it?

The second reminder reads ‘Hen night, pants, Yeah I can’. This confuses me a little. Through the haze of memory I can vaguely recall keying it in and I can also remember a hen night at some point in the past requesting the trolleys I was wearing at the time. The more sensitive among you will be pleased to learn that I didn’t oblige the ladies as this was all occurring in view of the general public and frankly because of the state of them. The thing is, that I’m reasonably certain that the two events happened on different nights. Which implies to me that I had a sudden flash of inspiration about something involving a hen night requesting underwear that was even more funny than the situation itself. Sadly this flash has long since burnt itself out and is lost in the ash filled coal scuttle at the back of my mind. One day I’ll clear it out and maybe there’ll be a few nuggets left worth burning, but that’ll have to wait until another day.

*Amusingly I typed ’sweatchops’ there the first time around, which just amused me as a word so I thought I’d share. You didn’t expect a legal disclaimer did you? Nike do run sweatshops. If they just ran sweatchops the world would be a happier place.

I’ve a sneaking suspicion that I’m being stalked by a tory MP. Not a Waldgrave or a Cam’ron – not one of the biguns or anything. This guy looks more like some mystery back bencher with enough time on his hands to spend it following me around all the time. I can’t say for certain that he is a Tory MP, I’ve yet to feel menaced enough to actually confront him about his stalking habits. But he looks the type. You know, pinstripe suit, a certain age, swift hair, a whiff of cordite, the walk of a man wearing suspenders. We’ve all seen clips from party conferences. Yet despite his apparent position of power I’ve spotted the man at least once on a nearly basis for the past month or more! I of course realise that I’m irresistable to man, women, beast, vegetable or mineral, but even I have to draw the line somewhere. Then again I shouldn’t really complain. It’s nice to get the attention. If he works up the courage to speak to me I’ll be sure to let you all know . . .

I’ve sat here staring at a blank screen for the past ten minutes. The only thing I’ve written during that time was something whinging about how I can’t think of anything to write. Meanwhile the only phrase that keeps going through my head is “fattie fattie fat fat,” something I was going to use for an entry last week, but have since thought better of. Think I’ll quit while I’m ever so slightly ahead (Christ knows when that was). Ideas when they arrive.

Finished reading Will Eisner’s The Plot the other day. Intriguing book, telling the history of the fictional, anti-semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion. An amusing note struck me in the footnotes at the end. A reporter for The Times was the first person to uncover the fact that the protocols were a shoddily cobbled together reworking of a book originally written as propaganda against Louis Napoleon III (that’s the London Times for any international (American) readers. Why they have to refer to it as the London Times always annoys me. I’ve never heard them call the New York Times the Times. Have you? No, it’s always the New York Times. Why can’t the Times just be the Times the world over? Probably shouldn’t rankle me this much and I very much hope that it’s the last time I find myself defending the Murdoch press, but rankle me it does. Digressory rant over). The Times reporter did his debunking in 1921, though the hateful tract is still distributed around the world today as fact, despite at least half a dozen official inquiries coming to the conclusion that it was a fabrication. Anyway, the footnote pointed out the fact that another British newspaper had been serialising the Protocols as fact shortly beforehand. Can you imagine a hatemongering, racist publication ever having existed on the English newsstand? Can you guess which paper it was?